Rodeo's Shark Saturdays bring out critics

DESTIN - The upcoming fishing tournament here still has its opponents, some of them fiercer than others.

"I'm just disappointed in them," Walton County conservationist M.C. Davis said of organizers of the Destin Fishing Rodeo. "It's obvious the people in power can't look to the future."

But rodeo board members say they hope Shark Saturdays will draw crowds, build excitement and prop up a struggling local fishing industry.

"We're not out there slaying the whole species," said rodeo Director Helen Donaldson. "Frankly, the fishermen have got to have something to go out there and catch."

The new weekly shark weigh-in during the October rodeo will replace the red snapper division. Those fisheries close Aug. 15 for a recently shortened season, down from more than six months to four months.

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This year will be the first rodeo without snapper - one of the most popular catches, said Destin boat captain Jim Green of the New Florida Girl's American Spirit.

"It's not like it's just going to be a free-for-all, a murder of sharks," Green said. "To sit here and try and split hairs because we're just trying to make a living ... We just wanna fish."

Each Saturday during the tournament, anglers will have a chance to win $250 with the largest shark at weigh-in. Catches must be at least 100 pounds and legal - no nurse or yellow sharks or endangered species, Donaldson said.

"We're certainly not going out there and catching sea turtles or pelicans," she said.

Similar shark tournaments have drawn protest in the past. In 2007, the Destin History and Fishing Museum sponsored the first one in more than a decade, and museum director Jean Melvin said she and her workers were harangued by protesters aiming to "stop the carnage."

Davis discouraged the tournament, too. A month later, the museum withdrew its sponsorship.

Still, in October 2007, a fisherman looking for grouper hooked an 11-foot, 844-pound mako shark, which drew huge crowds to the docks and media attention from around the country.

The rodeo has had a shark division in its lineup for years.
The new shark days are about "getting some blue-collar working people out here fishing" for the $250 prize, Green said.

"With the economy and the fuel price ... we've got to generate some excitement," he said.

That prompted Destin's self-proclaimed environmental "defender" Timothy Mahar to lament, "My city is better than this."

"... The only reason I can imagine them trying (a shark tournament) again is a certain desire to ‘kill something,' no matter what, due to a momentary burp in the economy," Mahar said in an e-mail Friday.

"Now with sharks threatened around the globe, why not kill more for a small amount of cash when watching them get gutted on the dock goes so well with beer?"

Nicole Matthews, a spokeswoman for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, called the idea cruel.

"The idea that catching sharks as entertainment is a notion that should be going out of style in our culture," she said. "It's showing kids it's OK to torment animals for fun. It's wrong."

Fish do feel pain and form relationships, Matthews said, but they aren't given the same consideration or legal protection as pets and other animals.

"When people are eating fish or shark, they're eating animals (caught in ways) that would warrant animal cruelty charges if it were done to dogs or cats," she said.

Yet PETA does not have protests planned in Destin. The organization does occasionally send its Frieda Fish mascot to fishing tournaments to promote equal consideration.

Davis' concern is conservation; he pointed to the red snapper problem as a consequence of overfishing. He said he actually was somewhat relieved shark weigh-ins will happen just once a week.

"I think this is the last generation that's not going to understand the light and realize you can't just target individual species without destroying the whole web," he said.

"The real answer is to reach the children and get them exposed and let them make up their minds."

Registration for the 61st annual rodeo ends June 30.

AJ's Seafood & Oyster Bar will serve shark kabobs on Shark Saturdays.

Asked if she would come to Destin and try one, PETA's Matthews said, "Absolutely not."